


i'm not here asking for absolution

by sultrygoblin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Chuck Shurley is God, F/M, First Kiss, Flashbacks, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Love Confessions, Making Out, Memories, Pining, past Sam/OFC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23890888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sultrygoblin/pseuds/sultrygoblin
Summary: one shot - ...it’s the horrors in her heart which cause the flames in ours. and she was always willing to burn for everything she has ever loved. rm drake
Relationships: Chuck Shurley/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 6





	i'm not here asking for absolution

**Author's Note:**

> i dunno. i got nothing for you man. you got your way of worshipping, i’ve got mine.

She's different and he had never quite decided how he felt about that. They probably wouldn't be standing there if she hadn't fought the path he'd set out for her every step of the way, whether she knew it or not. He was rooting for her, really he was, if anyone could make it out of this alive it would be her. But she's falling, the world is becoming heavy on her shoulders, each day more painful than the last. She's giving up. Bit by bit. She drinks more and more often, like she's about to start right now. Sitting outside the bunker with half a fifth of whiskey in one hand and her third cigarette in two hours in the other. Battered, broken, still trudging on, he couldn't have made her this beautiful. No, this was something only she was capable of. Something beyond what he could conjure up.

“I know you're there,” she calls into the night, her laugh dripping with cynicism as she takes her second gulp from the bottle and returning it's cap, “Coward,” flicking the ember into the dirt and climbing to her feet, booze forgotten, “All of this is just a goddamn temper tantrum because you don't like the word no,” she can't see him but it feels so much like she can.

She's always been different, he knew it the second she blinked into existence. The Winchesters were rebels but Tinsley was uncontrollable. A force to be reckoned with, nothing he threw at her could keep her down. And he'd thrown a lot at her. Enough that she was here, screaming to the void with some knowing he couldn't comprehend in a tone more of offense than anger. He doesn't think, one blink he isn't there, the next he is. She doesn't seem surprised, she's never seems surprised. More than anything she just looks sad. There's no better or more poetic word for it. She might've cried if she hadn't run out of tears years ago. 

“So you do listen,” it's another one of those laughs and he can't help but flinch, “Come to try and explain it all away like always,” there's something so beautiful about her like this.

He hates that he thinks that, that he's always thought it. At first he thought he was throwing it all at her to prepare her, get her ready for what came with teaming up with the boys, but it wasn't just that. Some part of him liked it. Enjoyed trying to knock her down in every possible way and her simple refusal to stay down. No matter how many times she wanted too or the countless times he wishes she had. She's a walking gallery of survival. For so long he'd imagined her skin pristine but now he couldn't remember a time when it wasn't inked and uneven with scar tissue. He knows he shouldn't, that it's weak to imagine what must anoint her skin in all the places he can't see but he does. Way more often than he should, enough to be distracting.

“Do you remember Christmas the year your mom died?” he breaks the silence.

She breaks, “Don't,” the sheen of burgeoning tears makes it impossible to tell where blues and green end, “Don't you dare.”

“You'd never seen snow and you prayed and prayed,” he loves the tears that spill over, black liner become smokey trails along the apples of her cheeks, “It snowed for three nights,” he loves how broken she looks, cracking open, and he's the only one who ever gets to see inside, “Three nights, just for you.”

“Stop it,” he doesn't know how she manages to keep that contralto voice of hers so even when every seam that holds her together is snapping, “Don't you dare pretend like you ever did anything for me. Everything I am is in spite of you,” which she would understand is exactly his point but she can't see this the way he always has.

“I know,” how easily the two words could sound condescending, yet here they sounded as if he were the one cowering before a god, “If you could see you the way I do,” for the first time he dares to reach out to her, she doesn't pull back but she doesn't take his offered hand, “You used to trust me, you know?” eyeing the appendage as if any moment the digits would curl and with one sharp sound she would cease to be, “Just one more time,” they'd surpassed playing fair, all that mattered was her hand in his. 

No part of her really trusts what he's about to do but she trusts what he could do if she didn't. It's faith of some kind, twisted and full of hate, but it puts her hand in his. He's always imagined what this moment would be like and it's exactly the same, the last nail in his coffin, driving home that he hadn't given her this power she had over him. She'd taken it. All of it could be her's and Tinsley didn't even know it.

{}

She's 13 years old, her mom's dead, her dad's gone, and the tiny room at her estranged grandmother's house reeks of mothballs. It's back when she still thought the gash across her stomach will disappear with time, it won't. Her hair's still long, the only extra piercings are the second holes in her lobes, and she's praying. All she wants is to cross the room and haul herself up by the arm because out of everything she's going to ask for he thinks snow is makes up for it all. In two months she'll be fourteen, a year after that her grandmother gets sick, she tries to be normal. The next year she dies and she left, only coming back to this place in her memories. Her eyes are scrunched so tight, she still remembers the words.

“If you can't bring momma back,” she mutters along with her younger self, “Please just bring me snow.”

“I couldn't bring her back,” listening to her sniffle beside him, the sound of her sleeve scraping across her face, “So I brought you snow.”

And she wants to tell her everything's going to get so much worse so much faster than she can handle. To say yes when someone asks her on a date, she can't even remember his name, just that she should've said yes instead of training to hunt monsters. Just be a girl, be a kid. She's pretty sure this is one of the last moments she felt truly innocent. Tomorrow she finds out her dad's car is wrapped around a pole, there's a lot of blood but no body. 

“But next week it snows,” not even realizing she's said the words out loud.

Watching the light go out, and the way she yanks her legs under the quilt as if it would protect her from the monsters. Even though it hadn't before. It never would again. She drops his hand, stepping deeper into the room. The scarce knick-knacks she'd been allowed to gather around the furniture she'd never picked. Found rocks, allowances, and babysitting money spent on internet gemstones and butterfly displays. She remembers the braids, suffering painstakingly over them to sleep comfortably with hair down to her waist. In just a few years she'll be sixteen, a ghoul gets her by the hair, after barely surviving she hacks it off in a gas station bathroom. It's never long again. But she remembers being so proud of it, how brightly the honey colors shined and all the intricate ways her mother had twisted it. Maybe, as it always seemed to be, the monster was a tipping point for something already there. 

“Where next?” finally tearing her eyes from the scene and back to him, “I imagine this little tour has a point. Where next?”

He holds out his hand, she still looks suspicious but she steps across the room and takes it all the same.

{}

She's nineteen years old – maybe?- sitting beside a grungy hotel pool, smoking a cigarette. The heat was unbearable in the south during the summer but she didn't choose where the cases took her. It isn't familiar to her, well it is, but it's no different than a hundred other memories she has. This makes it technically hers but she doesn't think this is about her. Her hand falls, back when it was simply adorned with silver rings and nail polish and not the intricate designs that had steadily grown across her body, clasping her hand around the bronzed flask she'd traded long ago for something more important in the moment.

“Is it open?” the voice is Chuck but it isn't, both her gazes fly to the addition.

“Define open?” she called, it feels like a dream she might've had once, “The office technically has a deli fridge but it doesn't mean I should eat from it.”

But it's Chuck when he was simply Chuck. The guy who they thought was a prophet. Who she had shamelessly flirted with much to Sam and Dean's confusion. But that's many years down the line. Right now he's just some guy and she can't quite get a read on him. No wonder.

“You don't remember this,” not a question, not upset, he never expected her to, “I think about it every day,” there's a bite there. Not the wrathful God she had seen far too much of recently but the even more familiar tone of a man hurt by a woman's puzzlement of his intent.

She doesn't think of herself as a sexual creature yet, her eyes passing over him as they had every person who was lucky enough to live in the bubble, he opens his mouth, closes it, “Thanks,” smiling and walking off.

If she had remembered maybe she would've realized sooner. It wouldn't have hit her like it was now. Her heart sped up and it was hard to catch her breath, feeling far too much like being hit by a car. At least that was the closest sensation she could think of. Tinsley's jealous of the younger her, so blissfully unaware. When monsters of the week ran her life. In a couple of years, she'll meet the boys, a dam will burst open and it makes her she start to wonder if maybe there's a reason it hadn't worked out with Sam. Or anyone else for that matter. Her dalliances never make it between the pages of his books, as if by ignoring them he could pretend they simply did not exist. More and more the phrase 'made in God's image' becomes truer and truer but it lacks the divinity Pastor Dave used to spout. It's his jealousy, his possessiveness, his precious need to be the center of everything. 

“I liked Chuck,” feeling very much like he must've before they'd entered this moment, he wasn't the only person here, and she was through letting him pretend that he was, “You might've noticed if you hadn't been so busy playing games.”

{}

She doesn't think he's humoring her as he seems legitimately surprised when they appear in that cluttered apartment. Perfectly so. Now that she knows it's easy to pick and pull it apart. But everything is clearer in hindsight. Isn't that why they were traipsing down the winding memory lane? The first time the two of them have been left alone. He's looking at her like he can't believe she exists. She'd gotten her knuckles tattooed recently and was pretending to be fascinated with how it had healed up. Until she just couldn't take it anymore.

“You're staring,” rolling so her shoulder blades pressed into the peeling wall, evening ocean eyes fixed on him, “You've been staring.”

“You're much more,” narrowing his eyes as he tried to grasp the word, “Xena than I expected. Scary hot.”

She laughed, a real laugh. It had felt good. She remembered it because it was the first time in a long time she felt almost normal. Sure she was babysitting a prophet of the Lord but he wasn't bad so look at. It hurts because it's hitting her for the first time that this isn't what she thought it was. He knows exactly who she is and what she'd be like, that feeling threatens to return but she doesn't let it. If she brought them here then there's a point she has to prove, daring to glance at her tour guide. It's like he's looking at it for the first time. He'd spent more time wallowing in how everything had changed he'd never looked back and seen how maybe it hadn't had to so much. 

“Yeah?” once again pretending to be very interested in her hands knuckles.

“Really provides context for some of those cut scenes,” she widened her eyes with a smile that could only be described as cheeky.

She thinks of this night often, even though she doesn't like to admit it. For a time there he'd fooled her more than anyone else, she'd taken his side far too easily. Even now she shouldn't be here. She should have alerted the boys somehow. But there's something about him that makes her weak. And it's not that he's the Alpha and the Omega or whatever. It's because the first time she remembers meeting Chuck she feels all those normal feelings she hadn't gotten to feel. He's watching her carefully, a way he hadn't before because his eyes are glued to the screen.

“So you have just been leaving them out? I was starting to wonder which way your wind blew if you get my meaning,” unable to stop herself from laughing when his breath stuttered and he glanced quickly at her like she might not notice, “But I see now. You're just being selfish,” pushing off the wall.

“What?” he shook his head, cheeks blooming read, “No. Apparently you just weren't believable enough,” like he had spent a long time arguing over the fact.

He hadn't, she knows that now, but he hadn't had to flirt with her. Every suspicious piece begins to come together, until there truly is no other thing it could be. No ego or narcissism to it. In fact if she didn't have so much evidence her self loathing wouldn't have let her believe it.

“This was real,” he looks like she's pulled him out of some coma dream, forgetting that they had been at this moment.

He smiled, “Real as it could be.”

“Huh?” cocking her head to the side, “I'm unbelievable. Never knew that was a good thing.”

“It's a very good thing.” “It's a very good thing.”

{}

She's laying on the table, research puzzled around her as she sighed heavily again, “You're going to have to get over it?”

She lolled her head to the sighed, “I'm what?” her face communicating how much of an impossibility she believed it to be, “You didn't hit on God.”

“You hit on Chuck Shurley. Not God,” he shot back watching her shake her head and scoff before returning her eyes to the ceiling, “What?”

“Dumb, dumb boy,” shaking her head once more before carefully picking herself up without disturbing his research too much, “I hit on God, right?” he rolled his eyes, nodding, “And then he hit on me back. Many times,” poking his shoulder with toe of her foot, “Why? What's the point of that?”

“You've got to stop thinking about this so hard.”

She barely gets time to take it in when everything's moving again.

{}

Her head's spinning, all she can really see is the two of them on those stone steps. As if blinders had been slipped over her eyes. 

“So Becky's gonna break up with Sam, huh?” she's trying so hard to be serious but she can't.

He too realizes how ridiculous it all is, “She's just a big fan.”

“The biggest,” nodding quickly, “She doesn't like me.”

“Oh she hates you,” scooting a bit closer to her as both of them pretended it wasn't happening, “She's just a little...”

“Insane?” nudging him lightly with her shoulder, “It's good though. I'm happy for you.”

“Thanks,” the silence sudden and overwhelming, he opened his mouth and shut it quickly, “Never mind,” barely a breath.

But she hears it, maybe he made her or maybe she just happened to, “What never mind?” 

“Remember that first time?” he asked, an endearing nervousness take over his face

She nodded, “Fondly.” 

“I should've asked you out,” finally daring to look at her and receiving a big, bright smile.

“For the record,” climbing to her feet and standing in front of him, “I would've said yes.”

{}

“Maybe if you were thinking with your upstairs brain-”

The slap across Dean's cheek echoes in the bunker, “How dare you?” her chest heaving as she glared at him, “Don't follow me.”

“Tinsley!” he's shouting after her, “I'm sorry!”

She heard, she hadn't cared. She still doesn't. The slammed door is just as loud.

{}

The doctor is saying something but her ears don't take it in. Just staring, wondering what kind of God would do this to her? Would he just keep taking and taking until she had nothing left? She doesn't go back to the house that night. Or any night. She pulls onto the highway hoping rage will work in place of a plan. 

“Jesus!” the wheel jerked out of her hands, she skidded into the shoulder, “Christ!” a semi's horn blares just inches from the driver's side mirror.

It's only then she finally cries.

{}

_Dear God, can you hear me?_

Her head hurts,

_Bless Momma and Papa..._

Her ears are ringing.

_Are you even listening?_

There are too many voices. 

_Why is all this happening?_

Too many memories.

_Where are you?_

Feelings.

_Why me?_

There's light, something beneath her feet. It doesn't seem like he planned to come here but he hadn't seemed very in control the last little while. Most importantly it's quiet. She enjoys it, taking deep long breaths. They're far from done. But for a few seconds she gets to breathe. 

“I'm a coward.”

Never for long enough though. She opens her eyes. It's just a room, wooden floors, and burgundy walls. It was a reflex, emptying the room and dropping them in the middle of it all. Where he was quite sure they belonged but had never been completely positive. He certainly doesn't feel like the creator of everything. He feels like that guy with the last name Shurley, trying to flirt with a sure girl was one of those once in an eternity anomalies that not even he could foresee.

“I'm sorry.”

It's what they both need to hear from his lips. Nothing's really going to change. He has a master plan beyond a mere mortal like her, The End, but she had never thought about him apologizing. It had been nigh impossible to get him to say it to his own son. Why would he ever say it to her? It's so simple an answer she feels willfully ignorant that it had never connected in her mind before this moment. He's taking her where ever he goes whether she wants to or not. But never did Tinsley ever think she'd say the next words out of her mouth. It was insane to even think let alone say and somehow it feels like the only answer. She's gone over every option a thousand times, that's what the whiskey had been for and in a snap, which is how things so often seemed to go, it became so insanely obvious.

“You're not...” shaking her head. It was ridiculous, “You can't be...” Based on evidence but entirely insane.

“I didn't plan what happened to your mom, I swear,” he said, sitting slowly on a velvet-covered cushion, “I'm not so innocent when it comes to what happened after,” he shook his head, the softest blue cut right through her, “But every time you made it. A little tougher, a little smarter, always more beautiful,” it reminds her of when Sam talked about meeting Jess, that same wistful look of trying to put words to something that no one has been able to quantify in all of existence, “I wasn't pretending. I definitely wasn't honest but I meant everything I've ever said to you. You have to know that by now,” not even the creator himself.

She drops heavily on the stool next to his, eyes glued to the floor while his couldn't tear from her, “You have to tell me, Chuck, you have to tell me right now.”

“I'm in love with you, Tinsley,” finally meeting his gaze, “I played it that way because I wanted to. Because I wanted you,” and he feels as close to human as he'll ever manage, “I thought if you liked me then maybe...” he exhaled hard, so full of melancholy she could almost feel it inside herself. 

“You know I have to help them,” she dares to reach over, placing her hand on his forearm.

He smiles, “I know,” turning slightly so he could face her completely, “Just a few minutes every now and again, that's all I want.”

“Why me?” it's a question she's asked him a million times before for a million different reasons.

It's a complete change. He's looking at her in that way he always had, “Were you paying attention?” it makes her cheeks pink and she can't help the little smile that curls her lips, “We'll go round two if we have to,” softly he placed his hand over hers, “Does it matter?”

“It shouldn't,” she said, slumping a bit as she pushed her hair back, “But it does.”

“You were supposed to die in that hospital, ” grabbing the wrist of her fidgeting hand, “Some part of you wouldn't let that happen,” dropping her hand on his shoulder and lifting the other to do the same, “It's what all of you were supposed to become when I stepped back,” wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her against him suddenly, “You're impossible.”

His knees pressed to her thighs, “Unbelievable.”

“Heartsease,” falling into him is effortless.

It runs through her mind, in that split second between when one realizes they are about to be kissed and the moment the embrace begins, that a few minutes might mean something different to each of them. It's gone in an instant, replaced with the unimaginable. He's holding onto her as if she's going to slip away any second, tight and needy. Begging for her in the only way an omnipotent being knows how to do. In this place, with this body, she's just her and he's just Chuck, and nothing else matters. She grips the back of his neck, her other hand barely moving to grip the back of his head, he hums, it tickles her lips and he uses the giggle she can't help to taste her. There's no stale smoke or hints of whiskey. Just Orange Tic-Tacs, 7-Up, and dollar store cherry chapstick. She's warm and smooth, meeting his tongue with no intent of submission. All he wants is to go back to that day, he doesn't even want to ask her out, he wants to kiss her like he's kissing her now. Somehow he knows it just wouldn't be the same. Every part of her logical mind screaming how terrible an idea this was, every sound battered down by the sudden feeling of him over her, pinned to something soft beneath her. When had they moved? She couldn't put it together, just that her hips were held down by a thigh on each side, his hands traveling under the sides of her shirt. She can't stay much longer, she knows that but it again because something that doesn't matter.

It's just his lips on her neck.

“I'm so sorry.”

Skin to skin.

“I love you too.

Heart to heart.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> as always feedback is appreciated. and i am always taking ideas or requests.


End file.
